Chapter 12 ~ Counting the Toll

If the day got any hotter, Scott was going to take off his shirt, no matter how much his thin chest might terrify the chickens. An idle thought; it would be awhile before he'd feel comfortable going shirtless, even before barnyard fowl.

Between the fatigue and general achiness from his recent bout with the ague, Scott hadn't been able to find many positions that didn't result in discomfort, which meant he spent a lot of time hunched over the kitchen table propped up with his elbows, or sitting upright, as he was now. His long legs dangled from the feed bin, back propped up firmly by the pine wall behind him. Grandfather had left days ago, one white eyebrow permanently arched over his grandson's desire to stay in the country. It took no small amount of effort but even he had to concede the horse needed care.

Scott sighed, not unhappily. Sore, but sated. Comfortable in the fact that he had made the right decision to bring Mortimer to Zephyr Fields. He shaded his eyes with his right hand, stiffly turned to look at the horse in the corral. The tatty mane and rain rot didn't bother him as much now. Maybe it was growing on him.

He'd related it often enough to anyone who would listen, how Mortimer had taken care of him, a green recruit, ever since they met. The horse had given him the status of someone who mattered, who was needed. And in the multitude and mass of the Army where a man was just another name, it was exactly what Scott had needed.

This was a new Mortimer, one he would have to get used to once again. And maybe the idea that he didn't have to understand everything, didn't have to put everything into neat rows, wasn't quite as anathema as it once had been. Nothing had really been in neat rows since Danville.

He'd tried to figure it all out, that year in prison, furtively glancing about, rain hitting him in the face like an insult on a day he was tasked to haul water from the river, because it had been so long since he was outside. He watched men sicken and die while others retreated into themselves. Every day had mattered in the beginning, every meal, every formation. He watched the members of his little group carefully, especially the ones who had lost hope.

He had aches and pains in places he didn't think he could get aches; he had cuts from hauling out stone and rubble from their tunnel and had sat shivering alongside John with the ague on dark nights.

It's for the cause, he kept telling himself.

It's the rule set by the commandant, he told himself when one of the more experienced prisoners ran intentionally over the dead line during a surprise roll call.

One hundred and five dollars a month, he whispered under his breath with every cold meal of cornbread and insects.

He started to feel good about what he was doing when they started the tunnel, when Cassidy asked him to take charge. Scott had it all planned.

They're all dead, this when the guards pulled him from solitary, and Green sewed up the infected graze on Scott's upper arm when he hadn't been nimble enough to avoid the first bullets. He hadn't even felt it.

The Union. The regiment. Slavery. Grandfather and Great-Aunt Elizabeth. Carter. John. Dancing with Julie. Studying at Harvard. Dining at the club. Even damnable Murdoch Lancer.

God help me, he thought the first time Union cannons and fire found the prison and he suddenly caught sight of freedom. His heart stopped cold, everything slowed—time, blood, and burgeoning excitement. God help me, was his only thought and it did him no good at all.

He banged his heel rhythmically against the bin. I can't do this much longer. And thought about the wide open field outside the barn the morning when it looked like Mortimer wasn't going to pull through. He couldn't explain why he blurted, though it had come out more in the form of a murmur. Old ears notwithstanding, Grandfather had heard. Scott hadn't seen the look on his face—didn't care to—but could guess it was either disparaging or stricken, and both were too much for him at the time.

His foot stilled against the bin.

It came to him as forceful as a stinging slap to the cheek. In many ways, it was just the same as directly after the attempted escape. The path diverged, yet only one route was really possible. There were things Scott kept hidden from himself, but this wasn't one of them. Perhaps in the same way his horse had changed, so had he, and the world around him.

Mortimer knickered his way to the corral bars. Scott shuddered when memory of the first night in the barn flitted through his mind. Kneeling beside his horse, gun in hand. It had been too close. Much too close.

Experimentally, he stood, stretching his cramping legs. It was as real as anything else. More so, even. It was weightless, the feeling. The only direction open was forward and it smelled like true freedom.

He approached the corral and Mortimer stretched his long neck over the bars and lipped the shoulder seam of Scott's shirt.

"No rank to eat anymore, eh, boy?" He reached up to scratch under the horse's chin.

After an entire morning split between helping Boone feed the animals, fixing a stall door and merely reveling in the fact Mortimer had set his hooves towards recovery, Scott had forgotten it was a blistering hot day. A dislocation: he remembered his great aunt's farm from childhood winters as something cold and quiet, an ice castle set on a far shore. The place changed dramatically in the summer, a locus of happy noise and energy.

What was I thinking, wanting to go into the Army? I should have been a writer. A poet. He grinned outright at the thought. Right now, he was an ex-cavalry officer, looking at his rather worn-down mount, like it or not.

"I hope it was a useful conversation." Elizabeth came up beside him, one pale hand clasping the top bar of the corral, the other held his forgotten coat.

Had he been waving his hands around? Or just talking out loud?

Scott eyed the coat.

"You would have left it here and you can never tell about Boston weather. One minute it's warm the very next too cold."

"How did you know…?"

"That you were leaving soon?"

Scott nodded.

"Because Mortimer is recovering nicely. He'll stay here, of course. Boone would be severely put out if the horse was moved back to the city."

"Just Boone, Auntie?"

She turned and smiled, pulling a fan of wrinkles across her sharp cheekbones. "Perhaps not just Boone." She winked. "Minuet would have something to say as well."

"Your donkey always has something to say. And I will be forever grateful."

Her smile faded. "Mortimer will be well cared for, Scott. He has a home here. He saw you through a most troubled period, it's the least I can do."

As she handed him his coat, a white envelope tipped out of a pocket and fell to the dirt. Elizabeth had already bent down to retrieve it before Scott could think.

"Mrs. John Baker? That name is most familiar." She gave a soft gasp. "Is this Lieutenant Baker? The one from your letters?"

"Yes. It's just a short missive to his wife Josie." He stared at the careful writing, remembering how hard it was to pick up the pen. How long he had pored over the sheets of paper held within.

"It was good of you. She'll be most grateful for whatever is written."

There was too much of a pause. "Yes, I'm sure she would." He stuffed it back into the pocket.

"And you…you have all the earmarks of a man who has come to some sort of decision."

She crooked her index finger, a signal known to him since the age of fourteen, after a spectacular growth spurt. He leaned down to hear her say, "I trust you have made the right one."

Then she kissed his cheek and let him go.

#~#~#~#~#

"Lancer! You cheated!"

Scott didn't quite remember how he and Carter had ended up at Abbott's, but the club was better than nothing. It was something to do and God alone knew he needed something to do. It was too bad Julie's cousin seemed fit to ruin the evening.

He wasn't quite drunk, but not steady either, and sat back in his chair and pondered exactly what Roland was shouting at him from across the table. The cards he played were left idly on the table, two kings overturned, the other three waiting like assassins in the wings.

His head did a bob and he looked over at Carter, who was all bushy eyebrows and pursed lips.

Scott raised a hand in protest because he never cheated. Everyone knew that. It was a certainty, like the sun rising in the east. He only had a few moments to think before cards flew into his face. Sure enough, Roland had launched the deck and now the entire table wiggled as though an errant earthquake had struck their side of the club.

Perhaps he was drunk. But the table did move. "I didn't cheat," he said, blinking away the film from his eyes that several good brandies gave a man.

"You bastard!"

Carter tutted beside Scott. "Now, now, my dear boy. We all know Scott isn't a bastard, although his father might be, but not in the familial sense of course. Why don't we lay that argument to rest? It's so old it has grown a lengthy bit of hair."

"He's a traitor to the Union. Absolved of guilt through his grandfather's money."

Roland had clearly lost his mind. Scott rose swiftly, lurched towards him, one arm outstretched. The other was held captive by Carter, who squeezed his elbow. Hard.

"Let it be, Scott."

"Are you even listening to him?"

Carter's voice pitched louder. "Remarkable, really, for someone who never set foot in a Union recruitment office."

Roland turned red-rimmed eyes toward the both of them. "And you, a one-armed useless wonder, who is just as bad. Keeping friends with a man who may as well have shot his men himself. Julie would do well to be rid of you, Lancer."

Sighing, Carter looked up at Scott, and gave an elegant shrug.

Scott lunged.

Roland jumped out of the way, but not fast enough and the both of them went crashing to the floor. Julie's cousin had a good twenty pounds on him where Scott had rage. It only took one punch to his head before he sent out a hard right.

He managed two more before Carter and few other patrons leapt between them. In the background, Scott could make out Del Abbott's anguished cries.

"Lancer cheated!" Roland stammered out the epithet as he struggled between the two men holding him back.

The grey-haired owner pushed into the fray. "This is an honorable establishment, gentlemen. We will have no violence here." He addressed the excited crowd, "Has the cheating been seen by anyone else in the club, or at the table?"

It was a hushed silence that greeted him. Several of those men who sat closest to their table shook their heads.

Abbott looked to Roland, eyes glittering. "Young Lancer has never given me cause to think he's anything except above board. Perhaps you are mistaken, sir, in your thoughts. As well as your manners." He flicked his finger and the two burly men holding Roland let go. "It would be wise for you to retire for the night."

Roland swallowed and rubbed his good eye, the one not closed by Scott's fist. He nodded.

Abbott turned to Scott. "You, young man are not a cheat. However, your other indiscretions have become numerous to prying eyes. You will vacate these premises for the period of one month. Perhaps during that time you will have come to your senses."

Carter groaned and murmured, "For God's sake, now is not the time to be a dunderhead."

Scott gingerly tapped on the swelling around his split lip, and finally nodded.

Abbott turned to them both. "Excellent choices, gentlemen. I trust you know your way out?"

#~#~#

Carter pulled him down the cobblestones. "Everyone knows Roland can't hold his liquor, just as everyone knows you are not to blame for those deaths." He stopped and looked up. "Even Baker's."

Scott's hand fluttered. "Don't. I'm too tired and have had far too much to drink tonight for that conversation. I've made my peace with it."

"Have you?"

"Yes."

"Then you sent the letter to his wife?"

Scott looked away, felt his face become warm. "I regret telling you about that."

"I'll take that as a no then."

They both stopped under a street lamp. Buzzing insects set up a loud cacophony around the harsh light set forth by the coal oil.

"Why are you hounding me about this, Carter?"

"Because I thought you were better when you returned from your Great-Aunt's country estate. Yet you drink and wager until all hours of the morning. I could only surmise the cause."

"And you think it has to do with John Baker?"

"Is it?"

Scott looked away, the gesture as damning as any words.

"Well, Roland had one thing right, Julie may decide to turn you lose if you don't fix what's wrong. You don't want that to happen, do you?"

Scott didn't answer. The gambling. The liquor. The fisticuffs. He wanted nothing more than to get absolutely legless, to feel nothing. Did it have to do with John's death? Or did it have to do with something else?

Scott looked at Carter, daring him to say anything more. It wasn't a good idea to get inebriated at the club, especially with the potential of having Grandfather's associates looking on. It was a coherent thought, one the last few he would remember in the morning.

tbc